Indian History Timeline

3000 - 1700 BC: Harappan civilization in the Indus valley (part of modern
Pakistan) with brick-built cities laid out in precisely aligned north-south,
east-west grids. Brick and street sizes are standardized throughout the region.
These are the last examples of town planning until Maharajah Jai Singh builds
Jaipur in the 18th century AD.

circa 950 BC: war described in Mahabharata fought; Pandavas
found their new capital at Indraprastra (Delhi).

circa 900 to 500 BC: Mahabharata and Ramayana
composed

circa 500 BC: oral poems and hymns committed to writing

circa 450 BC: birth of Siddhartha Gautama, subsequently known as "the
Buddha"

327-326 BC:
Alexander the
Great invades India but his men, weary from eight years of conquest,
eventually force him to retreat. Alexander is nearly killed by an arrow while
making his way to the mouth of the Indus.

200 BC - 320 AD: India's "dark ages" from the point of view of rulers and
politics; a golden age for art, literature, and commerce (for example, 1st
century AD is a period of active sea trade with Roman Empire, with fleets sailing
annually from the Red Sea)

320 AD: Chndra-Gupta I founds the Gupta dynasty, which is eventually to rule
about 60 percent of the subcontinent.

400 AD: Fa Hsien travels from China to India and reports a paradise of
Buddhist monasteries and monuments

1192: Muhammad of Ghor defeats combined rajput forces at Tarain, the most
decisive battle in the history of India

circa 1290: Marco Polo arrives on the southern coasts of India, on his way
back from China: "Men and women, they are all black, and go naked, all save a
fine cloth worn about the middle. ... [The Hindu south Indians] look not on any
sin of hte flesh as a sin."

1296-1312: Muslim invasions from Delhi to the kingdoms of South India

1398: Islamicized Mongols sweep in from Persia and sack Delhi, killing or
enslaving all Hindu inhabitants

1707: Aurangzeb dies, aged 90, and is buried in the simplest of Mughal
tombs.

1790-2: Third Mysore War expands British influence.

1804: Richard Wellesley, Earl of Mornington, completes massive British
territorial acquisitions in Fourth Mysore War and Second Maratha War.

1839: British-led "Army of the Indus" marches into Afghanistan and is
horribly defeated.

1858: Lakshmi Bai, the great female Indian military leader, falls to British
bullets in Gwalior , thus ending the Great Rebellion (against British rule)

1885: first Indian National Congress founded by Scotsman Allan Octavian
Hume

1905: Japan's victory over Russia in Russo-Japanese War convinces Indians
that defeating a big European power is possible

1914-1918: Two million Indians serve in World War I on behalf of the British;
Mohandas Gandhi returns to India from Africa

April 13, 1919: Following some Indian-British tensions in Panjab, General
Reginald Dyer brings his troops to a square in Amritsar on a feast day and orders
them to fire into the unarmed and peaceful crowd. Hundreds are killed and more
than 1000 wounded. Dyer was never disciplined for his conduct. In fact, in
England, the Morning Post newspaper raised a subscription on his
behalf and presented him with £26,000 (something like 500,000 in 2001
dollars) and a gilt sword as "Defender of the Empire".

April 6, 1930: Gandhi begins civil disobedience movement against the salt
tax, which had been in place since Mughal times

1943: famine in Bengal kills millions

August 17, 1947: border partitioning India and Pakistan is publicly
announced, inducing a flood of refugee traffic and violence.

January 30, 1948: Mahatma Gandhi assassinated by Nathuran Godse, a Hindu
militant angry at the ideas of eliminating the caste system and accomodation with
the Muslims.

1950: Chinese invasion of Tibet ignored by India in spire of a treaty
guaranteeing Tibetan autonomy.

1961: India annexes Goa, a Portugese possession

1971: East Pakistan secedes and becomes Bangladesh; the Bengalis get support
in the ensuing civil war from the Indian Army.

1974: India tests nuclear "device"

June 1984: Indian army storms Golden Temple in Amritsar; four months later
prime minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards. Hindu
mobs murder Sikhs in Delhi.